S3E7: A Kidnapping, A Foundling, An Enduring Mystery: the Paul Fronczak Story

Brian Shaffer vanished without a trace at a point in his life many would think was his prime. A handsome, well liked, successful medical student, Brian went out with friends in the bustling downtown bar district in Columbus, Ohio—in 2006 considered to be “the most surveilled city in America”—-and never made it home. This is a case oft-told, but perhaps, Tommy thinks, underdiscussed. Join us as we examine the disappearance of Brian Shaffer. 

This story took the media by storm. But with all the publicity around the Natalia Grace story, Natalia herself somehow got lost in the dramatic narrative and misinformation. Mick attempts to look at the girl at the center of this story, exploring the facts that we know and conceptualizing what happened along the way. This is our first case back after our long hiatus, and we are still trying to get our legs back under us.

First off: complete apologies. We never, ever intended to disappear like that.  But we swear there was a legitimate reason. We’re excited to get back into it. Take a second and catch up with us, listen to our excuses, and our plans for the future of Midwretched.

In Part 2 of our telling of Ted Kaczynski, we discuss the timeline of the bombings alongside his own writings and journals, focusing on his motivations and mental health decline. 

This episode was recorded Thursday 6/8, just two days before Ted Kaczynski was found dead in his prison cell. Any references to him being alive were made when he was known to be alive. In this episode, Mick reviews Ted Kacyznski’s early life, including myths and stories surrounding his development and education. And discuss what took him from a painfully bland  burnt out gifted kid to a domestic terrorist.

On June 3, 1997, 19-year-old single mother Rachel Timmerman told her mom she was going on a date with a man she met at work, and that she would be taking her 11-month-old, Shannon, with her. About a month later, Rachel’s chained and bound body would be pulled from Oxford Lake in Newaygo County, Michigan. As this case unfolded, it would become a significant story in the landscape of Michigan criminal justice. Join Tommy and Mick as Tommy runs us through a tumultuous investigation of a true monster in Michigan.

On an  April day in 1964, a joyful new mother enjoys her first days with her infant son. But when that baby suddenly disappears from the hospital, it sends the entire city into a whirlwind. After nearly two years, the family is reunited with the boy they think is their child. Decades will go by before that child grows up to uncover the mystery of who he really is, and what happened to the real Paul Fronczak.

The history of the Ku Klux Klan is deeply intertwined with the history of the United States and, arguably, there’s no better demonstration of this than the rise and fall of the Indiana Klan—branch of the KKK borne out from one man’s megalomaniacal need for power. When the violent rape and subsequent death of a young female politician happens at the hands of this man, the face of the KKK would be forever altered. Join Tommy as she runs Mick through this horrifying chapter of Midwestern history.

In February 1983, two boys in St. Louis enter an abandoned building looking for scrap metal and find a horrific scene that traumatized the city. Mick and Tommy discuss the still unsolved murder of Precious Hope, St. Louis’s Little Jane Doe. A massive search leads nowhere and desperate police take desperate measures. We talk about theories of what happened and what hope there is for this case to finally be solved.

Andrew, Alexander, and Tanner Skelton were last seen playing outside on Thanksgiving Day 2010, appearing as carefree and playful as they normally did to their neighbors in Morenci, Michigan. Less than 24 hours later, the boys were missing and their father was laid up in an Ohio hospital with a busted ankle. The story that follows is one of family drama, pointed fingers, impossible seeming stories, and questions that all boil down to one man withholding the truth. Join us as Tommy and Mick dive deep into the disappearance of the Skelton brothers.